For starters, Red Cat is not a burger, nor is it a sandwich of any sort. Red Cat is a wine. A delicious, delicious wine.

My first exposure to Red Cat was a few years ago when I lived in the Finger Lakes region in New York. The Finger Lakes are known for their wineries and are quite popular up and down the eastern seaboard. Finding any in Los Angeles is a challenge. Let me tell you about the wine, then tell you how I went about acquiring some.

Red Cat is produced by Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards in Hector, NY. Hector is a SMALL town along the eastern shore of Seneca Lake. If memory serves me if you blink you will miss it.

From the website: “Red Catawba and Baco Noir make this semi-sweet red an irresistable compliment to pizza, burgers, wings or a hot tub.”

The wine is a bright red and comes in a clear bottle to let that color shine through. To me, it has a nice but not too sweet taste. It is best served with comfort foods. It does not pair well with pastas or a nice steak. It does complement your Double Double or whatever you have picked up. C’mon, the label has a cartoon cat in a hot tub.

The winery will not direct ship to California, (Other NYS wineries do, by the way) so my only other recourse was to make the journey from the San Fernando Valley to Tustin and visit Total Wine.

I’ve long been a proponent of mass transit, and I saw that Total Wine was along a bus route accessible by Metrolink so I chose to depart from the Van Nuys train station for the voyage to Tustin. The train was running way behind due to a disabled Amtrak train further up the line. This pushed my whole timetable off. I had hoped to make a round trip via Metrolink since it is the most direct transit route. Ends up that with the delay I missed the last train back to LA. That meant a bus trip from Tustin all the way back to downtown LA and then the Red Line back to the SFV. Yeah. Thrilling to say the least.

My time at Total Wine was short. I knew what I was looking for, and it was right there on the shelf waiting for me. I had hoped to pick up some other Finger Lakes wines, but that was just a little too much to ask for. Took my three bottles of Red Cat to the register, gave the cashier a little story about how I used to live near the winery and how it is just impossible to get out here and I came from the Valley to get it. He seemed impressed.

Had some time to kill thanks to me missing the last train so I had my first McRib of the year. Haven’t had one of those in a long time. Review pending.

My travels back took me past several places I have not been to yet. I now know where Disneyland is. I’ve only been out here a year and haven’t been there yet. I’m more of a Walt Disney World type of person.

All-in-all, it took about nine hours to aquire $24 worth of wine. Worth it? Yes. Will I take mass transit again to get it? Probably not. Will I ask BevMo if they will order it? Yes.

Should you try Red Cat? Hey, I don’t review wines. Don’t take my word for it.